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In the wake of nationwide protests, Big Tech companies such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook have publicly stated their "support of the Black community." On the next Techtonic, Chris Gilliard discusses his recent Fast Company piece that explains how Big Tech companies profit from exploiting and harming the very communities they claim to support.

• Interview with Maxim at Museum of the Moving Image (Dec 2018): "I tried to correct certain blind spots that exist in our talking about robots, automation, and artificial intelligence. Most discussions are about what robots can do for you rather than what robots do to you."

• Above: as reported by this Seattle Times article (Sept 2018), "Amazon has patented a system that would put workers in a cage, on top of a robot." Amazon VP Dave Clark posted in response, "Sometimes even bad ideas get submitted for patents. This was never used and we have no plans for usage." (Image above from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.)

I hope to see other cities standing up to crony capitalist corporate-welfare tax giveaways as well, but I'm not optimistic. (Of course Amazon will continue to quietly employ hundreds of people in NYC and Newark anyway, so why any politician felt they needed to pay them $3B in incentives for half of an "HQ2" in LIC is totally beyond me.)

ok so killer robots are my worst nightmare. when i was a kid i used to have nightmares about cars coming to life and driving around wildly. once i had a dream that the lawnmower came to life and chased me around the yard yelling POWER POWER over and over again.

• Amazon was originally looking for ONE second headquarters known as HQ2. Then suddenly it became TWO second headquarters without much explanation.
• Now it is back to ONE; the one Virginia.
• Also, Amazon killed the NYC deal after meeting with labor union officials on February 13th.

Amazon is vocally anti-union and if they conceded to NYC unions, then all Amazon locations would have to be unionized. And Amazon doesn’t want that to happen.

Amazon will now just boost the staffing at existing NJ and NYC facilities.

No authority was in charge of enforcing those Robotic Laws. These laws, though, are simply lightly disguised laws that should apply to human slaves, and indirectly, condone slavery. In short, "slavery is OK, if they aren't humans". And people like to change the definition of what's a human all the time.

6:32pm
seedfriend:

Montgomery kinda makes sense very close to Stewart and the thruway and 84.

Anyone remember “The Bride of Frankenstein?” The second she comes to life she sits up, takes one look at Frankenstein and then screams and pushes him away. She was built as his “bride” but the second she comes to life? “Oh! Hell no!”

6:43pm
RobinSays:

I like how informative this show is. I really don't like robots. I don't want Skynet to happen.

@kevlicki: The story of “John Henry” is really one of the earliest “Man versus machine…” tales I can recall. I think everyone wants less work and more time for life, but there is no proper controls or taxation of entities profiting from mass automation like this.

If most people could pay 1/2 their rent and solid healthcare that is government-based—instead of employer—based—we would really be living in the future.